Stay on Football, she said...

Stay on Football, she said...

Stay on Football, she said...

Lana from Georgia used to harp those words upon us when we got too political or too —shall we say, sexual?—- for her tastes. Welp, despite Brizer’s characterization of Lana as a “vile strumpet”, it may be time to heed her crazy directive.

“Stay on Football”…

This current political brouhaha between the Eagles and Donald Trump must be called out for what it is—pure theater.

Walk away.

Nobody will care in five years from now what noble stances were taken by Eagles players or the ultra-liberal himself Jeffrey Lurie (owner of the Eagles) against the perceived anti-protest stance of the former USFL football owner The Donald.

It’s a stupid sit-com with a predictable ending, which is, nobody wins. Everybody in the drama ends up looking stupid. The audience laughs. They laugh at both sides, because it’s a comedy. And the definition of a comedy is that nobody dies. It’s basically a happy ending.

Players who think they have a bully pulpit (like Malcolm and Chris) because they are are currently at the top of their game will be ignored by the public in less than a few years when their careers are over.

Trump will either lose the next election or be relegated into lame-duck status within two years of his improbable re-election. He also will be ignored.

In other words, this is all temporary—temporary like Achilles.

What could be permanent is that guys like Malcolm and Chris continue their social activism after their careers in the NFL are over. That kind of commitment deserves admiration, even if you or I don’t agree with their somewhat short-sighted platforms.

As for Trump, he may permanently hate on pro football players who protest on the field against what they perceive as social injustice by bagging the national anthem. But at that point, especially when he is out of office, who really cares?

Stay on football. The game goes on.

Dave Spadaro sums it up nicely in a rare display of non-homerism:

“Nobody is interested in being dragged into a war of words….

“Players and coaches and teams don’t ride high for very long after wins and they don’t dwell in the sludge after defeats. You are trained to move on to the next challenge. And for the Eagles, the OTAs end and move into next week’s minicamp and then the team receives its Super Bowl rings on June 14 and then that’s it until Training Camp. The organization shuts down. Players and coaches scatter for five weeks.

“What you see on the outside, and how it is portrayed in the media, is often so very different than what truly happens inside the building. Players are trained to tune out the noise. Coaches don’t have much of a clue as to what the media says.

“Inside NovaCare, the Eagles have some work to do. This team has a long way to go to get the roster down to its best 53 players. There are injured players – among them, left tackle Jason Peters and middle linebacker Jordan Hicks – to get right for when camp begins in late July.